Erica De Mane

French Breakfast Radishes, by Felicity House.

Recipe below: Radish and Cucumber Salad with Burnet and Anchovy Vinaigrette

I feel I achieve a small hit of magic when I combine a few raw seasonal ingredients into a successful plate of food. To me cucumbers and radishes have always seemed right together. They’re both a little bitter and burpy. But I made some little cucumber and radish combinations and thought, something is missing here. It turned out they reminded me of the puntarella salads I’ve eaten many times in Rome, always with anchovies. So I added anchovies. I wasn’t sorry.

I had something else in mind for this dish, too. When I first started my herb garden up here in Rhinebeck four springs ago, I had never heard of salad burnet, but when I was choosing starter plants, I noticed a strange looking thingy where I bought herbs, a plant that grew in a star pattern flat across the ground. I had to get it. I didn’t realize salad burnet tasted like cucumber until I got it home. I’m so glad the plant found me. It comes back bigger and weirder every spring. It’s wonderful added to green salads, but also scattered over grilled fish at the last minute. It also makes a fantastic compound butter, which is great on fish or melted over vegetable kebabs. Burnet is nice with summer tomatoes, too. It doesn’t love being cooked to death; it wants to be raw, so I always add it to a hot dish at the last minute. And here’s a bonus: It makes the best flavored vinegar I’ve ever had, up there even with tarragon. I make a bottle every spring, usually with rice wine vinegar as the base, but good white wine or champagne vinegar works fine, too. I just shove a palmful of burnet sprigs into a bottle of vinegar and let it sit for about a week or so. Simple but excellent as can be. I used it here to double boost the dish’s cucumber flavor. All good hot weather magic.

Radish and Cucumber Salad with Burnet and Anchovy Vinaigrette

(Serves 4)

6 or 7 spring radishes (I used the long French breakfast variety), cut into thin rounds
2 English cucumbers, stripe-peeled and cut into thin rounds
Salt
1 spring onion, cut into thin rounds, using all the tender green part
4 or 5 oil-packed anchovy fillets, well minced
2 teaspoons rice wine vinegar (or burnet vinegar if you can make it)
Extra-virgin olive oil
Black pepper
A handful of tender salad burnet sprigs

Lay the radish slices and the cucumber slices out on separate paper towels. Sprinkle them lightly with salt, and let them sit for about 10 minutes to sweat out some moisture. Pat them down to blot off moisture. Then lay them out on a platter in a nice looking pattern, any that appeals to you. Scatter on the onion.

Put the minced anchovy in a small bowl, and add the vinegar, giving it a good stir. The anchovies will start to dissolve a little. Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and stir it around. Taste. You might need more vinegar, and, depending on your anchovies, you could need a pinch of salt.

Drizzle the anchovy dressing over the salad, and then grind on some fresh black pepper. Arrange the burnet sprigs on top. Serve right away.